


1: Whispers from home

by Fleshwerks



Series: Whispers on the Water [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 23:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8641735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleshwerks/pseuds/Fleshwerks
Summary: Alarming news from Kinloch Hold, the once home of Grey Warden Leandaros Surana. Time to investigate.





	1. Storm a'brewing

Lea had ignored the rumours at first - people prattling over piss ale. There was always something going on in Kinloch Hold, and if there wasn’t, there were plenty who spun scare-stories of their own. Bringing unruly children to heel with threats of being taken away to the Circle if they don’t behave, and locked into a dungeon forever. The dungeons under the stone tower and the lake waters were used as storage now, he thought, stacked with crates and rusting tools and armour and stacks upon stacks of books. The only living souls that used the Kinloch dungeons on the regular were mages of a reclusive sort. The children, even the misbehaving ones, slept in beds under feather blankets in dormitories warmed by a row of hearths.  
  
But from the moment he saw the glint of a templar’s armour on the jetty in waning daylight and Kester the ferryman banished to the Spoiled Princess, he knew. Someone had been _misbehaving_. He looked at his companions and nodded towards the Inn. The drinks here had been good when he set from Kinloch, though no noise was coming out of it, not even now when travellers sought beds and farmers something to sink their woes into. He hoped they were enough to lull the crew into a complacency. He didn’t need them prying, not until he knew more. And he wanted to get away. Morrigan thought Circle mages weak, too afraid to explore and exploit their own power. Alistair shuddered at the idea, and the two had been arguing fiercely for the past few hours. To Sten magic was a weapon dangerous and volatile. Leliana had lagged behind with the mabari, wearing a deepening frown. Only one kept his comments to himself was Zevran, who seemed perfectly happy to chew on blood lotus shoots, its juice turning his teeth red.  
  
Dew was settling on the blades of grass and the sun was gone. He greeted the ferryman who filled his pipe. _Twenty years I’ve minded the boat,_ he started all of a sudden, voice hoarse from years of elfroot smoke, _and now this shitmouth whelp lays his mitts on my boat. No one touches my boat but me!_ Kester barked. _You’re the boy that went with the Grey Wardens, no?_ He said. _Heard there was a big battle, people saying you all died or something. But then they say that your boys killed king Cailan, and I figure, what’s the point of betraying someone if all of you go down with him?_  
  
_Something like that,_ Lea responded, hugging his robes around him tightly as the cold lakeside humidity seeped through the fabric. This man, Kester, they hadn’t exchanged more than a few words and he’d laughed at Lea blissfully digging his bare feet into the soft, wet sand bank. _What’s going on with ser Shiny over there?_ He said, and set himself down next to the ferryman, digging through his pockets for the pipe and some elfgrass.  
  
_I wouldn’t know,_ the ferryman answered. _One day this fella comes with three of his canned-up friends and tells me to take a hike. I ask, now why’s that. Greagoir’s orders, he says, and look, I’m not going against Knight-Commander’s word, I just want my boat and my coin. Skillet-head boys over there have been working the jetty one after another. Funny thing though, I see templars coming out, but none go back in. Merchants came and went twice a week, but no one gets in now._  
  
Shit. Lea rubbed his brow. _How long has the tower been silent now?_ He asked, voice conversational and calm.  
  
_‘Bout a week, two, maybe._  
  
Lea inhaled the bitter smoke, pensive. Two weeks ago the rumours had been different. Dissent and tension, but no word of a lockdown. Merchants were such vicious gossips, but for the gossip to move, they must’ve been declined passage more recently. So this isn’t a lovesick young blood mage making a run for it. A group? _Whispers in the upper library. Young voices, no older than he was, and tomes had gone missing, dusty old things no one but the senior enchanters touched._ A band of rogue mages can still be put down. This means that someone’s gotten themselves possessed. _I’m going to have a word with the tin man_ , Lea said, tapping the ash out of his pipe.  
_Good luck,_ the ferryman grunted and entered the inn.

 

Lea straightened his back as he walked towards the pier. So did the templar in his spot, bored and aching from hours of standing, and something else that made the man twitch ever so slightly.  
  
_No passage to Kinloch hold!_ He shouted as Lea approached him.  
  
_Your name?_ Lea asked. He couldn’t see the man’s expression.  
  
_Ser No-Passage To Kinloch-Hold for you,_ he responded, voice irritated as much as excited for the distraction.

 _Kester tells me that none have been allowed into the tower for some time now,_ Lea said, tone conversational, but low.  
  
_Kester has a big mouth,_ the templar responded.  
  
_Well, ser Templar, let’s try again. My name is Leandaros Rahe Surana, a mage of the Ferelden Circle of Magi, and a Grey Warden. What is yours?_ Lea said slowly.  
  
The _Queen of Antiva,_ the templar answered. Sweet Andraste on a spit, Lea thought, like trying to pry secrets out of a stripling.  
  
Lea paused. An old hesitation, subjugating a templar with magic. He decided against it. He picked at the pouch hanging from his side, procuring a vial with dust that had the faintest glow.  
  
_Think you might be willing to part with a little more for this?_ He said, voice like honey, and gently shook the vial.  
  
The templar shifted his weight. _I might,_ and reached out, but Lea jerked his hand back, and the templar’s hand curled into a mailed fist before dropping to his side.  
  
_What’s happening in the tower?_ Lea said.  
  
_Look I don’t know. Knight-Commander told us to guard the passage and not let anyone across unless they have his permission. That is all._  
  
Lea frowned, then let the templar snatch the vial from his hand. An _I don’t know_ spoke loudly. The tower now held secrets that would’ve been fatal to mage and templar alike, all rumours needed to end at the guardians who knew nothing.  
  
He didn’t bid the templar good night. No sound carried from Kinloch hold over the still waters. He needed to rest, and everyone else, too. A tired mind is so easy to breach.  
  
\----------  
  
The morning was grey, hot and still, with dark, tall clouds churning on the horizon. He looked at his companions. A night in a soft bed and a roof over their heads had left them better rested, with fewer dark circles around the eyes now peering at the silhouette of the mage tower.  
_Alright, the boat carries four. Any volunteers?_ He said chipperly.  
  
_Yes, who wants to go to a creepy tower filled with mages that has ominously fallen silent?_ Alistair quipped.  
  
_No Alistair, then._ He’d hoped that they would keep their comments to themselves today, but no dice.  
  
_That doesn’t mean--_ Alistair protested, but Leandaros cut in with a gesture. In the face of his own worry about his home, his patience hung on a thread. And had things truly gone awry among the mages, he’d never hear the end of it.  
  
Sten stepped forward, silent, grim, but determined. Lea gave him the slightest of nods.  
  
So came Morrigan, and now it was Lea’s turn to protest: _Am I going to hear your comments of what a failure the Circle is, and how all the mages it raises are weak and this and that?_ He asked the Wilder woman sharply.  
  
_Not unlikely,_ she responded, and took her place beside the Qunari.  
  
_No one else?_ Lea said. He couldn’t judge. He stifled a snort. Chad the Mabari, then, he thought to himself, before Zevran slowly walked to his side.  
  
_Not every day do you get an invitation to a mage’s home,_ he said. __  
  
You’ll be wishing you hadn’t, Lea thought, but feared less for the minds that did not know magic. He contemplated on whether Morrigan should come, picking apart the frayed edge of his traveller’s cloak. Oh, let her, he concluded. A mage was a vessel for the demons, but it is hard to fill a vessel that is already so full of itself.

 

Ser Tinman at the jetty had been replaced with another templar, equally unknowing of the situation in the tower, but had much less lip on her. This templar he knew, Knight-Corporal Stefana, a soft-spoken woman with a hand that rather stayed than struck, but solemn and hard as steel when she was called upon. The four took their places with Stefana at the helm, the boat careening under Sten’s weight until Stefana ordered them around to balance it out.  
She welcomed Lea home.


	2. Panic murmurs quietly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reason for the mystery at Kinloch is revealed. The Circle is all but gone. Lea Surana lashes out at Morrigan.

There had been an altercation at the door before Leandaros managed to explain the templars who he was and why he was here, before Knight-Commander Greagoir himself marched over spitting daggers when he laid his eyes on the mage whose departure and escape from justice had brought the Circle to ruin. But many templars had fallen and many more were wounded, and their loss took precedence over his anger.  
  
 _This is your doing, interloper_ , the Knight-Commander hissed, jabbing him in his chest with a steel-clad finger, the most hurt the man could cause him - the silver wings of the griffon shielded him now. _You and that maleficar boy  and…. Uldred,_ he said, and Lea let him seethe and speak, and he listened as Greagoir called them conspirators, some shadow cabal determined to bring down the Circle.  
  
Jowan’s bloody little trick at the Vault had been the spark. The chaos at Ostagar, and Leandaros’ freedom after such grave trespasses had spread the fire like ill wind. _Uldred,_ the mage who ripped apart the veil with blood. Was Uldred not at Ostagar? Uldred the vanquisher of the Maleficar?   
  
_You think I conspired with Uldred?_ He asked meekly.  
  
 _You were both at Ostagar, were you not?_ He spat back. _Sly little mouse like you, lying and plotting, how very convenient that the two of you end up in the same place at the same_ _time, and suddenly Uldred’s back, putting ideas in mages’ heads about how the traitor mac Tir’s the key to freedom!_ _  
_ _  
_Lea’s neck flushed as he opened and closed his mouth, choosing the next words carefully.  
 _Ser,_ he began. _Have you heard what they say about Grey Wardens? They say we betrayed king Cailan. This one here,_ he nodded at Zevran who flashed Greagoir a wide but unfriendly smile, _was sent to kill me. By Loghain mac Tir. So why would I, a mage of the Circle of Ferelden, conspire with a mage who supports the regent’s coup, wants me dead, and…?_ He looked around the hall.  
  
... _tried to escape with the aid of a band of blood mages,_ Greagoir finished. Oh. Oh damn, Lea thought.   
  
_Where are the mages?_ Lea asked, but the answer was obvious. _Dead,_ Greagoir said, and for once the anger in his voice abated. _These halls,_ he waved at the large, iron-bound door ahead, _now belong to abominations and demons. And we,_ he sighed, _don’t have the numbers, nor the strength, and our lyrium supplies low._ Greagoir frowned. No time to engage in a spat. He walked away from the group, Lea on his tail. _We sent word to Denerim. Maker give us strength to persevere until Annulment._  
  
Lea stopped in his tracks. _Excuse…?_  
 _  
_ _See any other choice?_ Greagoir said.   
  
_What if there are survivors,_ Lea said, voice measured. _Have you checked for them?_ _  
_ _  
_ _We haven’t had the manpower. The tower’s overrun._ _  
_ _  
_Lea fell silent. He’d come for the aid of the Circle, and now, mere handful of templars, and Maker knows if there is any Circle left to save at all.  
  
 _Knight-Commander!_ He said. _I am the mage whose Harrowing was over in a blink. With me I have talented killers. If you are not willing to sacrifice any more of your men, allow me and my team to do it. We’re rested, fed and eager, and we will bring back survivors, if there any._  
  
Greagoir sized the party up. Suddenly he just looked old, decrepit, like the armour was too heavy. He waved idly at the door. _You go in, this door won’t open until I hear First Enchanter telling me to open it._  
  
 _On one condition,_ Lea continued, speaking calmly, but insistently, interlacing his fingers behind his back. _I have a Blight and a traitor to deal with, and both of them command more numbers than I could possibly muster. If I return with Irving, provided that he survives, I will require the Circle’s assistance as mandated by the Grey Warden treaty, signed on 3:26 Towers._ _  
_ _  
_The Knight-Commander raised an eyebrow. He’d known about Lea Surana. Meek boy hiding in the mazes of library shelves. Giving him ultimatums now.  
  
 _You’ll have it,_ Knight-Commander said, tiring of the conversation. **_If_** _you succeed and Irvin’s alive. Pray for it, instigator, or you’ll die with the rest of what’s beyond that door._ _  
_ _  
_Lea smiled and beckoned his companions along. Morrigan drew breath to utter something, but Lea silenced her with a wave of his hand. _There are fifteen templars here, lemoncake, and only one of you,_ he said. _I should love to watch you take them on._ She snorted.   
  
Suddenly, _Why?_ Greagoir said to Lea’s back.  
  
 _You won’t believe it,_ Lea said, slowly turning towards the templar, __I had no intention of ever leaving the tower. The place was home, no?  
  
\------------

  
The door falling shut behind them sounded like a funeral bell when Lea saw the aftermath of what must’ve been a recent attack unfolding in front of them. The hall was empty, save for the dead. He glanced at the door behind him, covered in bloody handprints, scratches left by those who sought to flee the carnage, but found themselves already sentenced to death by their wardens. There were voices coming out of a side room to the right, one that contained the entrance to the dungeons, and the air smelled of magic, the unmistakeable smell of lye. Spirit magic, he surmised.   
  
The scene that unfolded caught Lea unguarded. There was movement, bloodied bodies wrapping up other torn up bodies. The mages must’ve had run out of strength as they made for the exit, defending the children now huddling in the corner, eyes wide as saucers. Older children crouched over others, pressing their hands and bodies down on open wounds, arms red to the bony elbows. One of the apprentices lifted her head, revealing deep gashes running across her face, and stared, mouth agape.  _ Enchanter Wynne!  _ She shouted, voice high and breaking.    
  
A woman rose from among the bodies of several apprentices, weary, leaning heavily on her staff, a slender, unadorned thing topped with a nondescript white stone. The lines on her face were deep and contorted by a painful expression, aching from crouching over the dead and the dying, and though no wound seemed to bleed through the robes of a Senior Enchanter, she was unsteady on her feet. Unsteady, but Morrigan behind him half-whispered  _ oh my  _ with a smile in her voice _.  _ There was a barrier undulating at the doorway like sea silk, and several of the wounded on the floor crackled with healing magic, unseen spirits that had been called, pouring into the wounded to keep them from expiring. The whole room was full of Enchanter Wynne, overwhelming any display of magic from the other mages who could still muster a spell. From this woman with face like old tree bark and hair gone white long ago.   
  
_ Someone,  _ she said quietly,  _ has come to end us?  _ She forced herself straight, the barrier, the healing magic still holding.  _ Has the Right of Annulment been invoked? _ __   
__   
Lea had never studied under Enchanter Wynne. Hers were students attuned to spirits and creation. But will and health now bled out of her, and where he’d once seen a woman stand aged but proud and stern, now she barely stood at all.   
  
_ Enchanter Wynne,  _ Lea said, stepping closer so that the woman could see his face.  _ Enchanter Wynne!  _ __   
__   
_ The young Surana,  _ she said, and some of the hardness he’d seen in her eyes at Ostagar returned.  _ You were the one who survived then. Why are you here?  _ The Senior Enchanter straightened herself and rolled her shoulders.   
  
_ Uh-mm,  _ Lea stammered. Enchanters all had that edge to their voice, the directness, the command of a teacher that still made him sweat. It had not been a year since his Harrowing.  _ Yes, Enchanter, the Right of Annulment has been invoked, but no word has yet arrived. I also need.. Uh…. the aid of the Circle. Against the Darkspawn, that is. So Knight-Commander has let us in so we could.. Um… deal with all this.  _ He swallowed. He could feel Morrigan’s eyes piercing her back.    
  
Wynne looked behind her, through the barrier, mouth growing tight.  _ Blood magic. Possession. These here,  _ she motioned at the room full of injured and dead,  _ are everyone I managed to save, but the doors were closed. There might be others, but I don’t dare to nurture hope. _   
  
Lea crossed his arms, picking at the skin on his wrist.  _ One way to find out,  _ he finally said, earning the faintest smile from the Enchanter. He turned around.   
  
_ Morrigan.  _   
  
_ Hm? _ __   
__   
_ Take care of the injured, please, we’re going up.  _ __   
__   
_ Excuse me?  _ She said, voice dripping with poison.  _ Why should I?  _   
  
Not this again.  _ Because you’re a mage, and…  _ he paused, trying to find the right words,  _ well. All of us are in danger. Even you with your considerable knowledge. And I’m not sure if we’re able to fight against you if something goes wrong. _ __   
__   
It drew a smile from her. She flipped the hair out of her face. The sugared command did not escape the Wilder witch, but that the little Circle mage had bothered to sweeten it for her amused her.   
  
_ Why should I,  _ she repeated, slowly walking among the wounded,  _ save the sad creatures that allowed themselves to be put in a pen? And now they cower and cry when sickness spreads among the herd and their masters have decided to cull them? Seems like mercy to me, letting them go to their revered Maker, don’t you think?  _ She said, savouring the Warden’s eyes peering from under those ridiculous bushy brows, and smiled. Sad little boy with little silver griffon wings.   
  
Her face froze and she swallowed, and felt her throat. Shestared at Lea who stood as still as a statue. The muscles in her neck tensed, and she broke out in rapid coughs, managing only the tiniest breaths, and all of the blood seemed to drain from her face, lips growing pale, bluish. Wynne’s gaze bounced between the two of them, but Lea gently removed Wynne’s wizened hand that had risen to stop him from his shoulder, and offered the Senior Enchanter his apologies. He was an apprentice no more. He seemed to almost float to the choking Wilder until only mere inches separated them. Gold eyes burning in anger and distress looking down to the cool, melancholy blues of the Warden.   
  
_ Because I’m asking you. Very nicely.  _ And the witch fell on all fours, gasping, the rush of air making her dizzy. Morrigan looked up at him in contempt, and slowly got to her feet, massaging the aching neck.    
  
_ Would you look at that. The lapdog bites.  _ She cleared her throat.  _ Very well,  _ she said.  __ The Circle mages may shun their gift, perhaps ‘tis I who must save them from themselves.  She turned from Lea, wiped the cold sweat from her brow and paid the elf no more attention.    
  
The barrier in the arched doorway faded. He was sure he hadn’t eaten any moths, but they fluttered in his belly anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How about that rushed goddamned dialogue, huh? But there really isn't much time to banter. The situation's obviously shit.
> 
> Lea's panicking and fear always manifests itself in a sort of aggression. He'll talk faster, he switches to a direct, imperative way of speaking. This is also when he completely forgets that one shouldn't assault someone magically just because they're baiting you or saying things he doesn't like. This Broken Circle-based series will most likely see a permanent change in Surana, and he'll most likely begin to subscribe to Morrigan's "power and survival" rhetoric.


	3. Sepulcher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Senior Enchanter Wynne, Warden Lea Surana, Zevran and Sten of the Beresaad enter Kinloch hold and encounter survivors.

The storm clouds that had loomed on the distance earlier now flashed with lightning through the narrow windows, rolling closer, thunderclap echoing in the halls. The candles in their sockets had burned out long ago, the magic lights no longer flickered in their lamps, with no one left to light them.    
  
  
_ You know, suddenly I feel bad for jesting about  our Grey Warden’s surliness. Anyone growing up in this dreary, drafty place never had a chance. That, and of course the whole Templars giving you the evil eye, princess in a tower deal. Had I know this is where he grew up, I would have sailed south sooner to rescue my handsome prince,  _ Lea heard Zevran say in his sandy, warm voice, but he didn’t hear his footsteps, and he knew without looking behind him that a dark tower running red with the blood of angry mages was not nearly as funny as the assassin would make it seem. For once, still, he appreciated the attempt. Lea hated this twilight that filled his home. Low murmur, many voices coming from somewhere ahead down  the hall. More mages slouched against the wall, the way they had when they bled out. All apprentices, he noticed, clad in their blues and golds, some with faces so mauled, he no longer could tell who they were. And some familiar ones. Lyra, Hannah, Martine, all initiates of the Chantry, who had always trailed that one curly-haired templar kid.   
  
_ They should be burned,  _ Wynne whispered.  _ Too many demons press against Veil here, all seeking for a body. Alive, dead, doesn’t matter. Such is their desire. _ __  
__  
Lea covered his mouth with his hand. These bodies had lain here for days. A week? More? The smell of death filled the corridors.    
_ What happened? Why weren’t they with you?  _   
  
_ I missed them. Chaos, people screaming, children hiding under their beds, closets, and wouldn’t come out though I called for them,  _ Wynne said, still whispering, and looked like the weight that had slid from her back before was replaced by the shadows of those she could not deliver.  _ Greagoir…. Knight-Commander told me to get as many as I’d find. But by the time I’d rounded up as many as I could, the main door was closed. I think I saw Senior Enchanter Leorah…. I don’t know. I can’t be sure.  _ She fell silent. Something stirred behind them.   
  
One of the sisters.    
  
He’d expected Wynne to take action, but the woman stood solemn and still. Neither Sten nor Zevran waited for commands as they lunged forward and butchered the shambler, cutting limbs and head from the body unceremoniously. The ruins in the great Brecilien had been teeming with hungering spirits that nestled in the dead. The templars will find these hungerers easy to deal with.    
  
He looked at Wynne, watched her hardening her heart.  _ Hunger,  _ she said.  _ And rage. This is what we’ll find in these quarters. _ __  
__  
Yes. Apprentices angry and resentful for the confines of cold stone. Some hungry for knowledge, some for freedom. easy prey for the basest of spirits.   
  
_ Desire, up above,  _ she continued, voice dry, quiet but calm. The elf and the qunari wiped their blades in the robes of the one they’d put to her true death.   
  
_ And pride. Fear those, Leandaros Surana. Pride is the first to be born and the last to die,  _ she finished.  _ We should move on.   _ She turned on her heel, steps a little louder now, echoing off the walls.   
\----   
  
Nothing but shamblers and hungerers trailing them, and shades from the Fade gnawing at their heels, visible only in the periphery of sight, clinging to their legs, weaving fatigue around their bones. Not evil, he thought. They just try to survive. For a moment the material and the immaterial didn’t seem so different. The Senior Enchanter did not seem to be bothered at all, some barrier between her and the darkness, but Sten’s brow dropped lower and lower and the crow’s ever-alertness was failing.    
  
Lea smelled the air. Ash and charred flesh wafted down the circular corridor.  _ What happened here?  _ He asked.    
  
__ The lower library was burning,  Wynne said. And pointed to a large charred door to her right. Paper and parchment and wooden shelves were burn, but the stone wall had broken the fire’s teeth, and left it licking the doorway and the floor until the blaze was no more. There was a reason why the mages kept the walls of the circle corridors bare and floors devoid of furniture.   
  
The closed door did not respond to his touch, but shattered at Sten’s boot heel, greeting him with a gust of stale smoke and burnt grease. Lea balked at the sight of the vast archive of knowledge reduced to coal, the hem of his robes dusting up swirls of fine ash as they passed. A dark mound lied across the library hall, difficult to distinguish in the gloom, but a cold fist tightened around his heart when he drew closer.    
  
Tendons bend in high heat, that’s why the fingers of the half-burnt always looked like dead roots stirring. The black smoke had left a sheen of pitch on the walls. All the dead on their pyre unrecognisable, save from a brooch here, a buckle there, though Lea recognised none of them. These remains belonged to adults.   
  
The quietest whimper pierced the sepulchre, and they all turned to the direction of the sound, though the dark was too thick for Sten to pierce, and the Senior Enchanter would not cast magic that would mark her a beacon for the demons about. But Lea saw. Zevran did too, the eyes of the elves were built for cutting through shadows.   
  
Three figures bundled up under very large, heavy table with carved legs, now chipped and splintered. Someone young, someone older and someone dead with blood on his arms and chest, dried and dark, and face as white as limestone, unseeing eyes open. He could see the live ones recoil at his glance, hugging each other tight.   
  
Lea stepped closer and lowered his staff, motioning Zevran and Sten to stay alert, but keep their distance. 

_ My name is Leandaros Surana, and I am a mage of the Circle of Magi of Ferelden,  _ he said as he kneeled, making himself small and willing his low voice higher and softer. No answer, but he knew they listened.   
  


_ I was Harrowed only a few months ago, and I was the Keeper Apprentice of the Third Library. Who are you two? _   
  
The larger figure grabbed the little one’s spindly arm to stop them from crawling into the light, but the child shook himself free, and crawled over the mage who he now remembered to be Senior Enchanter Sweeney, though death had the way of slackening the visage of its victim so that they no longer looked the same.   
  
Elven boy, no more than nine, flaxen hair dirty draped in front of his eyes, ears large and sticking away from the head, peered out, then gingerly crawled forward on all fours. And so thin, not like children his age so often were, but starved..   
  
_ How long have you been hiding here?  _ Lea asked, taking the boy’s hands in his, but received no answer.   
  
_ What happened to Senior Enchanter Sweeney? _ __  
__  
The boy stared at the ground between them.  _ He burned them.  _ His voice was thin voice but clear. _ So that demons couldn’t come. _   
  
Lea threw off his thick silken cloak and wrapped it around the boy. Without it he felt just how bite of the cold dampness in the tower was.   
  
_ Who’s your friend?  _ Lea continued glancing reassuringly over the boy’s shoulder.    
  
_ Sandrine,  _ the kid said.  _ Sister-initiate. _ And slowly the shadow cowering changed into the image of a girl, her once pristine Chantry robe smeared with blood, soot, and stinking with sweat. Limbs long, crawling out like some strange spider. Her face was gaunt, and eyes wide open. No more than fourteen, Lea assumed. Old enough to understand, to comprehend the terrorscape her home had become, in a way the young elven child would not yet understand. Wynne rushed to her side, startling the girl, and the boy tore his hands from Lea’s, and clung to her knee.   
  
_ One of yours?  _ Lea asked, but Wynne shook her head.   
  
_ No, one of Leorah’s,  _ she replied, stroking the boy’s head. The young Initiate inched away, but froze still when Lea turned his gaze on her.   
  
_ Sandrine,  _ he said softly.  _ Can you tell me, what has happened?  _ But the girl only shook her head and recoiled further, and Lea suppressed his desire to whisper a spell to make the girl just a little more pliable.   
  
_ They made us watch,  _ she whispered at last.   
  
_ Watch what?  _ Lea asked, urgency fortifying his voice.   
  
_ The turning,  _ she said louder, following suit.  _ They killed the Sisters for blood. Mother Clara was the last.  _ She paused, sinking into her memories before continuing.    
  
_ Go on,  _ Wynne encouraged.   
  
_ Then the other mages came. Senior Enchanter Sweeney, and others. They fought, I think. We couldn’t see, we ran, Enchanter told us to. We ran to get outside, but we couldn’t get through. But then when it got quiet, Enchanter came to us bleeding, and told us to drag the bodies. Then he burned them. _ __  
__  
Lea was surprised to see colour rise to her pale face.   
  
_ Can we go?  _ Sandrine asked.  _ Can we leave?  _ __  
__  
Lea stood up, feeling the tendons pulling uncomfortably in the back of his knees and ran his hand through his hair, glancing at his companions, Zevran leaning his shoulder on the doorway, facing away from them, ears pricking towards the sounds coming from ahead and above, barely audible, but Lea heard them too. He’d expected more demons, more mages. He turned back to Sandrine.   
  
_ Tell me. When did the fighting stop?  _ He asked.    
  
_ Three nights ago,  _ the boy said before Sandrine could reply. He was still clinging to Wynne’s robes.  _  I counted. Three nights. _ __  
__  
Explains the smell, Lea thought to himself.  _ Right. Head to the exit, the both of you. It should be safe, but remain vigilant. Sten?  _ The Qunari turned his stony gaze down to him.  _ Please, accompany them. The barrier remains, but stay there with the children. We’re sending any survivors your way, and they can’t protect themselves. _ __  
__  
_ I am not a child herder,  _ Sten responded darkly.    
  
_ No, you are not. But Enchanter Wynne and I know the tower,  _ Lea said.   
  
_ I can take them,  _ Zevran suddenly said without turning his head, still watching the circle hallway.   
  
_ No, you can’t,  _ Wynne said and measured Sten with her eyes.  _ From two floors above the tower narrows. Narrower corridors, smaller rooms. That longsword this… Sten.. carries is going to be of little use, and,  _ she turned towards the Qunari: _ you are very tall and wide. _ __  
__  
Sten regarded both mages silently, but finally gave them a curt nod, and turned on his heel without glancing at the children. The young boy switched his grip Wynnes robe to Sandrine’s and hugged the carmine robe tight around him, and so the two followed slowly, him peering at Sten from behind Sandrine’s skirt, and Sandrine keeping her eyes down. They must be starving, Lea thought. And very thirsty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot moves slowly, but this whole multichapter is the longest thing I've ever written, and essentially my first attempt at something that isn't essentially static, introspective fic-bit. Let's call this whole thing a writing exercise. One's got to start from somewhere.


	4. The Faces I Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pushing on. Some still live.

Though the circumstances in which they’d found the children were dire, a handful of hope was restored. If children could survive, children who often were most vulnerable to the influence of spirits and demons, then there might be more survivors ahead. Kinloch hold had many places to hide. Lea Surana would know, and so would many other children seeking to get away from the torment of templars and their own peers alike, or those who simply had something to hide. Many a dark corner would hide secrets, caches of darkness where people came to pour their anger and their clandestine undertakings. There may be more hiding in the praying grounds. Initiate sisters and even some templars liked to believe that the grace of the Maker and his Bride would repel Fadelings. Superstition. But people often proved sturdier and braver when they believed to be shielded by Her holy hand.   
The Chantry  was a mess, floor covered with stone chips from where the spells had hit, and the blood spattered on the columns and the marble figures of Andraste was brown and dry. He wished he hadn’t sent Sten back, he missed the reassurance of his tall figure. Zevran, who had taken point, scanning his surroundings relentlessly failed to fill Lea with confidence, even though the Chantry was empty.

  
  
The journey through the second level was uneventful, though Zevran worked his blade on every body they came across in case any unwelcome spirits tried to claim their bones for themselves. But at the stairs that led to the third level, Wynne stopped, holding her breath. He saw her papery lips quiver, but her eyes were focused on the door above. She pointed her staff at the door.  
  
 _There are demons in there,_ she said, voice low, _and they are very hungry.  
  
_ Really, Lea thought. _What kind?_ He said, not noticing his own voice turning into a whisper.  
  
 _Anger. Terror…. Hunger,_ Wynne replied. _Listen closely._  
  
A low murmur barely audible that he felt in his bones rather than heard. A vibration, the song of the Fade humming, undulating through the torn Veil.  
  
 _Enchanter Wynne,_ he whispered. _My magic doesn’t work on demons._ He could see Zevran pacing back and forth behind them from the corner of his eye. _They don’t sleep, they don’t… bleed. They don’t get sick.  
  
I know what you are, _Wynne said, a hint of steel in her words. He saw her squint, mouth hanging slightly open, gaze turned inward. Suddenly, Lea felt very young, and the ceiling of his magic and his knowledge seemed to hang very low.   
  
_These demons have come to the waking world. They may not sleep or bleed, but they are subject to the laws of this world. Now. There are abominations, they’ve anchored themselves on a live body. And they sleep just fine. They have waking lives to lose. You focus on them._ She straightened herself and Lea could smell the ozone as the Senior Enchanter primed her magic. _I will go first. I will draw them to me. Your assassin will circle behind them and does what he does best. They have bodies, they fall to steel just like the rest of us. You deal with the abominations, and you don’t turn your attention from them. Do you understand?_ She stared at both of the elves, eyes on fire.  
  
 _I am but a thrall to the commands of my lady Enchanter,_ Zevran said wryly and smiled widely at Wynne, who sneered and shook her head at the indignance of the assassin. Lea only nodded, a sheen of sweat already coating his upper lip, and the three of them slowly climbed to the door.  
  
 _Ready?_ Wynne said, and the elves nodded. Suddenly her magic washed over the both of them as a shimmery shield erupted from her staff, enveloping them all. And the door flew open with a burst of a spell.  
  
Lea saw Zevran slipping into the shadows of the tall bookcases that lined the Third Library. His library. His old haunt, his beloved maze. Three demons turned to the mages, and the Veil’s song raised gooseprickles on his arms. It pressed at his eardrums, and flowed around him to the Enchanter that wove the raw Fade into a cage around the corrupted spirits to give Zevran time to position himself. Lea ran from behind the shield towards two abominations and whispered. But only one faltered. The other kept coming, still clad in the robes of a Senior Enchanter, but its body was gnarled, moving like it didn’t quite know how. Its mouth was pressed into a thin line, and its head was shaking like it was cold, such rapid shivers.  
  
Lea froze. Senior Enchanter Leorah, eyes unseeing, guided by mad hunger of the one that had wrangled her spirit. Something behind him came tumbling down, bookcases, maybe. Someone cried out in pain, but Lea paid it no mind. He whispered again, and the Enchanter collapsed onto the floor, mere inches from him, limp and unmoving but seething, mouthing something, clacking her…its teeth at him. Lea stepped back in horror, almost falling when the abomination stopped gnashing its teeth, glared at him from the floor, and threw open his mouth, so wide the corners of it ripped just a little, and bled. He swore he could hear ligaments snap in Senior Enchanter Leorah’s jaw.  
The lesser abomination he’d lulled stirred from its magical slumber, but Lea could spare it a mere glance before his eyes dropped back onto the horror unfolding in front of him. One by one each of Leorah’s mangled and distorted hands’ long fingers curled and straightened again, and its flesh seemed to be boiling. It wasn’t shaking his curse off, _it ate the spell he’d cast on it._ And when the last wisp of his curse was gone from it, it rose from the gound, a vile shape of a woman and a monster, towering over him, its mouth like a gaping wound in its face, siphoning magic the stunned, wide-eyed mage.   
  
The world around him muted, he felt hunger that robbed him of his sight, he felt his flesh wither and his skin clinging to his bony shoulders. Weakly he fumbled around his belt - he felt life tearing itself from his body. Lea fussed with the strings until they gave way. His fingers clasped around a vial, its content stirring at the touch of magic, soaring through him like a bright songbird. And then he fell, and the glass shattered, its precious content spilling on stone, and despair cut him like a blade.  
  
—-  
  
The staff which he’d fallen onto pressed uncomfortably into his shoulder blade. Lea could not tell how long he’d been out. Someone called out to him, but the voice was distant, like from another world. A pair of hands shook his body by the shoulder. Someone was having a conversation, but he couldn’t make out the words, and his eyelids remained as heavy as lead. There was another touch, a gentle one, that melted into him, watering his wilting soul, guiding him back from the edge of the void.  
  
He groaned and felt someone patting his chest, and heard Wynne’s welcoming him back. His eyes protested, but he forced them open, and the shapes of Wynne and Zevran swam into focus.   
  
_Are you always this useless or did you just wish to fall in my arms?_ Zevran asked cheerfully, extending his hand to Lea, _because next time, all you have to do is ask._  He noticed the flush on the side of Zevran’s face, and torn clasps on his jerkin, the leather seared black at his shoulder, neck kissed red by the rage demon’s flames. Lea rolled his head to the side, and met Wynne’s gaze, and opened his mouth, but the woman silenced him with a gesture.  
  
 _What happened?_ She asked, leaning on her staff. Dazed, it took him a moment to recall. He grabbed Zevran’s hand and let him pull him up. What was left of the abomination laid at his feet, a short blade embedded deep in the top of its skull.   
  
_She was still in there. Senior Enchanter Leorah,_ he said simply, childishly, motioning at the red-clad remains.   
  
Wynne shook her head. _Child, that was a demon._  
  
A petty little know-it-all protested in his head. _But an abomination is controlled by a demon, the body’s owner is—  
  
Gone, _Wynne finished his sentence. _This was a mercy._ She sighed, and stepped away from the carnage. He turned to Zevran.  
  
 _What happened?_ He half-whispered to the crow, but the elf’s expression was inscrutable as he unfastened his waterskin from his belt and offered it to Lea as he looked over his shoulder. Lea lifted the waterskin to his lips and drank greedily.  
  
 _Was this your first one?_ Wynne’s voice rang out behind him, sending a jolt through his chest, but her voice had lost the edge. Lea didn’t answer.   
  
_Harden your heart, young Warden. There will be more._ The old woman seemed to wither at her own words as she turned from him and headed to the door leading to the fourth level.  
  
Lea emptied the waterskin, but it did little to quench his thirst. Intangible dread spun gossamer webs around his heart, and the shock of the horror and the taste of the abyss still lingered.  
  
 _Everything alright, Warden?_ Zevran asked and took the empty waterskin from him. Lea exhaled and rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, and nodded, and together they followed Wynne.The Warden had ttaken three steps up the stairs when his stomach suddenly sank and the colour drained from his face at the sight of the door. A delayed panic. Instinct took over, a desire to survive, and it beat all air out of his lungs and filled his veins with ice.   
  
_I-I don’t think it’s a very good idea,_ he said to Wynne’s back. She turned to him, looking down at him, the wrinkles on her forehead deepening.  
  
 _I mean…_ Lea wrung his hands, averting his eyes from hers. _I mean…. I didn’t do very well here, did I? And I won’t do well ahead. Perhaps…_ he inhaled, forcing his expression still, _I should double back. I’m useless here. I can’t… I’ll send Sten. Or Morrigan, maybe…  
  
_ Wynne walked to him until they were face to face. The woman stood taller than him, tired, stern, and placed a wizened hand on his shoulder. _There is no time. We have to keep going. If we go forward, there’s still hope. If we go back, we’re already dead._  
  
The words did not comfort him. Mere months ago he’d wedged himself between the shelves here, drowning in tomes. He looked to his left and let out a pained sigh. His hidey-hole. The urge to dart into it like a mouse almost beat him. But Wynne’s fingernails digging into his shoulder brought him back. Enchanter Wynne is a senior mage. She will know what to do, Leandaros told himself and resented the scared child in himself that cried for someone else to fix it, like they had always done. Onward, then. Dead anyway.


	5. G-man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fade beckons, the composer of the death knell shows its twisted face, and it hungers.

The stairs leading to the fourth levels were littered with new bodies, not apprentices or enchanters, but templars, and as the Templar hall drew closer, the dead grew more numerous, marred, burned, half-consumed. And there, in the hall itself the killers waited in the bloodbath.   
  
The fear Lea had felt slowly grew into a thrumming anger, its red hot tendrils spreading through his system. Each monster wearing the face of its victim seemed less like a person and more like an effigy, an insult to their hosts, a mockery. And each of them came down more easily than the one before it, those fuelled by rage succumbing to apathy, hunger retching black bile as it drew closer until the Crow’s blade fell upon them.

  
To watch the pallid faces of the people he’d known, bright, prickly, kind, forgetful. Some who had snuck him scrolls on true entropy, some whose magic thrived on decay just like his did.    
The abyss in his belly grew. These monstrous shapes wore the faces he had known, but they were hollow inside. A few times he’d closed his eyes when he’d sung them his hissing lullabies and heard daggers cut through flesh, sinew and bone, to spare himself from the sight of his past torn apart in front of him.

  
And then they stopped coming. Zevran bent over, catching his breath, wiping blood from his eyes, but Wynne just stood in the center of the room, quietly counting the losses. Lea did not look down, but at the walls.    
  
He’d seen it in the Korcari wilds, crawling up the trunks of dying trees, spreading itself over carcasses of dead beasts, even creeping towards the corpses of soldiers whose blood was still warm. And this here already spread its stinking tendrils towards the fresh aftermath of the massacre. He didn’t have a name for it, this crawling filth like diseased skin, and it sensed him too. It murmured its fragments of mundane, stolen memories. Someone’s voice told someone to gather the quills. He thought he heard the sound of books hitting the table. Laughter. Someone told someone to go see First Enchanter Remille. The echo of the routine shouting in the kitchen halls. Alarmed voices, low, mumbling black speech. Old memories and new, of the lives this thing had become full of as it consumed the dead and dying of the Kinloch hold. Why was it  _ here? _   
  
Wynne had noticed too, but her mouth was pressed into a tight line. She’d seen it in Ostagar, too. Zevran’s face, however, contorted into a mask of disgust as he noticed the mass creeping towards his boots, and retreated over the helms and corpses of the templars who littered the floor.   
  
_ Some work of your like, Warden?  _ He said as he backed towards the door that led to the templar barracks. Daggers wouldn’t help here.   
  
Lea glanced at Wynne.  _ Do you hear it?  _ He asked.    
  
She knitted her brows.  _ I hear. Loudly. It is feeding. _ __  
__  
Lea didn’t reply as he looked out to the either side of the circle hallway. This was no demon speech. The spoken words were of the Fade, but it was tainted, black.    
Wynne was the last to exit, shoving the door shut behind them, though the stench of death permeated the whole floor, and the fight in the Templar hall had left them all curiously exhausted. A moment to rest wouldn’t change much, he thought, but they were so close now to the source of this chaos. There’ll be time later. He wondered, what time of the day it was. The hallway seemed to be dimmer than those below, perhaps the day was well on its way to becoming the night. He’d never seen the hall pitch dark, and hoped that they wouldn’t have to.   
  
He heard Zevran yawn. The last time he himself had been here was when he’d made his up to his Harrowing, but what used to be floors scrubbed pristine and hallways ablaze with the cool, white flames of magic, was strewn with the fallen - the gnarled bodies of demons-possessed, and the red of the robes of Senior Enchanters, all in the clutches of the Blighted growth consuming them, and when Lea looked at his companions, Wynne’s face had grown stony and eyelids heavy, and Zevran didn’t seem to be able to decide whether to fall asleep on his foot, or heave up the contents of his stomach first.   
  
_ What is this?  _ Lea whispered to Wynne, but the woman paid him no heed. Something loomed ahead, twisted around the defaced statue of Andraste on a pyre. Lea froze at the sudden thud of a body hitting the ground. Zevran lied limp on the floor, face down, noiseless and unmoving.    
  
A voice rang out. Each word felt wrong, the cadence off like it didn’t know how to be spoken, labouring as if sounds were weighed down with lead.   
  
__ Who are these interlopers, come to interrupt my feast?  
  
  
\-------  
  
  
  
Was it a sound or was it a quake? He imagined that this was the noise earth made when the mountains moved and the ground churned, but the soil beneath his boots was perfectly still, small stones calmly turning around their axes. The world of whisper, a million suns and none, the place between dreams, the  _ primordial  _ foundation on which the noosphere was built, and he’d been here before.    
  
_ Has the time come?  _ A weak voice echoed, and Lea turned on his heel, sending pebbles flying in all directions, making splashes in rancid, shallow waters somewhere far away and yet very near.   
  
_ Searing spirit,  _ the huddling figure said, averting his eyes, covering his face with a hand as if too close to a living flame.  _ Will you burn me away? _ __  
__  
Lea stepped closer, feeling weightless, his hair like threads of pure shadow obscuring his face, bright samite now robes a ghostly shroud.   
  
_ Is that what you see?  _ Lea asked as he took the knee, speaking softly. The man froze. Robes of a Kinloch mage, Lea noted, the paisley of the cloth of gold now dirty and dull, dark damp hair clinging to his pallid forehead.  _ Niall?  _ Niall, another of the ones who’d often seek solace and privacy in the mazes of the vast Kinloch libraries.    
  
The mage twitched and then slowly lowered the hand shielding his face, cloudy eyes squinting.    
  
_ You,  _ he whispered,  _ are not supposed to be here.  _ He looked like a weeping corpse, waters of the Fade pearling his skin.    
  
_ Where am I supposed to be?  _ Lea asked and frowned as he listened to the echo of own voice, though all that unrolled in front of him was the wet, stinking bog plains of the Raw Fade, and the voice sounded like his, but didn’t. Like a good impression, but a mere impression nonetheless.    
  
_ Ah. So They are here, then,  _ Niall acknowledged dully.  __ Best go meet your maker.  Suddenly, the destroyed mage convulsed, and the earth under Lea gave way with a pained groan, and he fell.   
  
Fell. Floated. No wind howling in his ears, no bottom to sink to. Until there was, and he hit the ground hard, and cried out in pain.    
But the air he gasped tasted like sucking on a brass key, its scent so sharp, so overwhelming. It smelled like slaughter. It took a moment for the stars of hard impact to fade from his vision before he could make sense of his surroundings, but when when they did, Lea Surana found himself standing in red ashes, flakes of long-dried blood maybe, swirling about him, whipping his face in a ravaging storm, red and angry over copper sands and against rock formations that floated above, furiously spinning from the merciless gusts, yet still suspended in their places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one, rushed. Call it growing pains. As for the title, G-man, it's an obvious reference to Half-Life. Someone shows up who has been there during the key points of Lea Surana's life from birth to the painful today.


	6. Where no man's supposed to be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> never trust the gift of the sweet sleep of the sloth demon. Lea Surana attempts to chase the sloth from Wynne's and Zevran's heads.

Was it still the Fade? Lea wondered and looked around, squinting, until the dust of decay in his eyes all but robbed him of his sight and clogged his airways, choking him, biting at the tender tissues, eating through it like rust, but when he coughed into his hand, wiped his eyes, blew his nose, his hands were clean.  
  
Lies of the Fade, Lea thought, and pulled a piece of gauzy silk across his face. Thought fuelled the Fade, and it shaped itself after memories. To whom this tempestuous, crushing and choking rotten realm belonged Lea did not know as he set on his way, but Fade was Fade, and though the struggle against the hammering winds was exhausting and he found himself aching for a rest soon, at least now he could see and breathe.  
There was a lone carriage tilted to its side, lying half-buried in the piling sand, gold paint flaking off the ornaments and carvings in an endless stream of shining dust and wind, suspended in some memory. He kept on going.  
  
It was by accident that he noticed a figure obscured, struggling to move, arms raised to protect the face from the wind, looking around as best as they could and failing to spot any shelter or path from the beating sand. Lea trudged closer, reaching out a hand, gripping the silhouette by the skinny shoulder. Zevran.  
  
Lea’s heart jumped from recognition and relief in this nightmare. It almost felt like the winds relented at the sight, if only a little. Lea pulled him closer by the shoulders with a smile, but froze as the elf faced him, wide-eyed. He looked young, Lea realised. Perhaps younger Lea’s own age, still coltish in the way young men often are. No ink curved on his cheek, only a bare face under a mane of gold. Young, confused, determined, eyes watering and skin scraped from the sandstorm.   
  
_What in the…_ Lea uttered as Zevran shrug off his grasp and swiveled, looking around for someone, unsteady on his bare feet caked with sand and…. Blood. His arms were bloody too, though the elf did not seem to pay any attention to it. Tied by the thumbs, both digits crushed between pieces of studded metal. Thumbscrews. Leandaros had seen the likes of these in Kinloch, discarded in the damp, dark corners of the repository cells. Vicious little devices to crush finger bones and break fingernails until blood drew from the puncture of the sharp stud inside. His jaw slackened at the gory display, and the indifference of the elven boy, who’d begun muttering to himself the fragments of speech. Like memories.  
  
 _Any time now.._ Zevran said, ripples in his calm tone betraying the frustration beneath. _Do the Crows not need the use of their thumbs?_ He asked with no one around to answer his question but the howling storm.  
  
 _Zevran,_ Lea said, trying to get his attention.  
  
 _Now you,_ Zevran said with a strained laugh. He didn’t look at Lea, but there was recognition in his voice, _can torture me any time you like.  
_ The elf glanced over his shoulder at him like his presence in a dream from youth was nothing out of the ordinary. _I can never tell if it’s pain they temper me against, or do they test my resolve with their unfortunate faces and cheese breath.  
  
_ Who’s they, Leandaros thought. _Zevran. Listen,_ Lea continued. _You need to get out of here._  
  
 _Oh, Eoman wouldn’t be very happy about that,_ Zevran answered, _and I’ve paid for my training with blood and years of mild annoyance. Tempting as your offer is, you can pry my to-be profession from my cold, dead fingers,_ he added and attempted to step away, but nearly buckled as his broken toes failed to support him.  
  
Sooner than you think, Leandaros thought, growing frustrated with the elf’s stubbornness.  
  
 _You are already assassin. Do you know who I am?_ Lea almost shouted.  
  
 _Yep,_ sounded the curt answer. _You are supposed to be dead. By…. my….. hand?_ A doubt flickered across Zevran’s visage as turned to look Lea in the eye. _Ah, you will be, as soon as I’m out of these._ The elf rattled the device flattening his fingertips and winced through a grim smile as the pain shot through up along his nerves.  
  
Leandaros shook his head. He hoped it was true what they said about dreams, that a day in a dream is but a moment in the waking world. And Zevran’s passiveness cost them many a moment.  
  
 _Well. I’m standing right here, seize the day,_ he goaded. _  
  
But Eoman said---_ Zevran began, but was brusquely cut off by the Warden. __  
  
Eoman has you shackled and crushed to compliance. What will Eoman say when he finds out that the mark was inches from you, and you just stood there like a good little boy?

Zevran’s expression shifted, reluctance giving way to something else. He looked to his right, and then his left, as if gauging the reaction of someone, but his furrowed brows betrayed the fact that whoever had been by his sides had suddenly disappeared.  
  
The clink of the thumbscrews hitting the sand was muffled by the wind, but there they lay, bloodied. Lea lifted his gaze and watched as Zevran observed his bruised and broken fingertips through the shroud of his hair. The elf briefly locked his gaze with Lea, then looked at his broken hands again.  
  
 _Ow,_ Zevran muttered, voice underlaid with a chuckle of disbelief, and the sharp metallic smell that had permeated the space the entire time seemed to let up.   
  
Suddenly Lea felt a wave of anger. Not his, someone else’s, and it pulled like a rope around his neck. He saw Zevran mouthing something, and the boy’s eyes widen as he stopped mid-sentence, but could not hear nothing but the maddening whistling in his ears, like someone had screamed in rage and left him deaf. The stormy, rotting world faded from his sight, so like how the vision had gone from his eyes the time he’d suffocated by the grip of a templar’s

hands around his throat.  
  
  
  
\----  
  
The same way when vision returned with sparks and a headache when he’d come to did he awaken now in a world that was a narrow path of stone, ever downwards, grey rocks covered in something that seemed to be crawling along it, with high walls on each side. No ceiling, only calm, greenish sundown skies above. And doors along the hallway, though as he descended, not one of the doors opened, not even when he threw himself against them. Only one way then, down, wherever the walls herded him, with open skies taunting him, out of reach.  
  
Again, there was this deafening silence, hearing the clicking of his own joints, his own blood rushing, and calm heartbeat pounding like a drum. The sounds of living, grotesque in this rotting silence. Long, long way ever down the path looping in a perfect coil, the walls weeping and cold.

He’d begun to wonder if there’s no end, when the path ended abruptly with yet another door, but this one was ajar, the air flowing from it cool and sepulchral and as choking as the assassin’s dream, though where the vast dunes of red bone dust robbed the dreamer of a sense of direction, the Senior Enchanter’s nightmare closed all paths but one. He pushed the door open.   
  
In the dim, dry room stood mannequins. Limbless but for a pedestal beneath, the same there had been in apprentice workshops where robes were sewn for everyone but the ranks of Enchanters. He remembered now, the smell of mothballs, vague shapes of human torsos covered in cloth yellowed and stained over time, onto which apprentices and mages of lesser talent sewed robes for recreation, for learning the craft, the diligence and finesse of it under the Tranquil.  
The paisley of Kinloch hold mages shimmered on cloths draped over the mannequins, some finished, some mere strips of crumpled, stained silk. All unmoving. All but one, the one in the red of Senior Enchanters, face buried in a wizened hand in mourning, perfectly still like a cenotaph.

 

 _I know you’re here, boy,_ she said, voice fraying. _But I am where I am supposed to be._ Wynne had not turned around, but this was her dream.  
  
Lea stepped gingerly past the mannequins, taking care to not disturb them.   
_Look at them,_  the Enchanter continued. _All of them. I was there, and I couldn’t help them. Their blood is on my hands as much as it is on the beasts’ who called the demons down on us.  
  
The halls of my home lined with the bodies of my wards. Have you ever seen the tower so dark, Warden? _Wynne asked, still standing anchored to her spot, face hidden by her hand. _Even the walls weep for no living voice echoes off them anymore.  
  
_ Suddenly, the Senior Enchanter straightened up and looked at Lea over her shoulder, cold eyes fixed on him, lines around her mouth tense and hostile.   
_Now get out of my head,_ she hissed, her calm cadence and tone turned viperesque and just as venomous. _  
  
_Lea’s mouth fell open, the train of thoughts grinding to a halt at the threat. He clasped his hands, trying to find the words that had fallen wayside, but did not budge.  
  
 _They are dead,_ he said carefully. _But you’re not.  
  
I should be. I could be. I could have stayed longer, blocked the path, _the enchanter’s voice crumbled and once again she stilled.  
  
Leandaros looked around in the room of mannequins. For Wynne they must’ve looked quite different, the toppling of her resolve and swelling despair boring into his own heart, ripening it like a fruit for a hungerer. He frowned at the bizarre sensation, the damp weight of anguish snuffing out his fire.  
  
 _The dead do not care, Enchanter,_ Lea said and wiped his sweating hands into the cloth of his robes. _But I still live. You live. I am a mage of the Circle, and I ask for your help._ Urgency cut through flesh of his heart and lungs. Him who reigned here was ready. Fat and content at the life force of mages, so full of power, and so very vulnerable.  
 __  
And then he saw the Senior Enchanter’s shoulders rise and fall in a deep breath, and her hand dropped to her side. Suddenly, Lea heard a click of a lock, and another, a whole cascade the sounds of opening locks spiralling upwards and away from them.  
  
This time, he could almost feel the hands on his throat, the pain in his ears that shot down the cords of neck and the loud ringing in his ears again felt like the aftermath of someone’s furious scream, though there had been none. The sensation of being pulled under into the dark, lungs filling with liquid… panic.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I deliberately kept the dream sequences short and very simple based on my own experience with dreams which can be vivid and elaborate, but seem to be over before they even started, and that are actually quite simplistic despite the bells and whistles.


	7. Consolidation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's only one dream left for Warden Surana to disperse. His own.

The mud between his fingers reeked as he tried to claw his way out of the diseased, still water, but tufts of weeds only came loose at his weight and he sank back into the tepid water filled with rotting plants and dead insects.   
  
He tried again, sputtering and coughing the fetid fluid out of his airways, heavy, wet robes dragging him down, eyes filled with much, when something grabbed his wrist and tugged him upwards. He felt like a slug, slimy and limp as he was dragged ashore.  
  
Coughs wracked through him, bits and pieces of decomposed matter scratching the lining of his throat and making him gag. Tears flowing to wash clean his eyes until through discomfort and dirt he could see his saviour.  
 _Normally I’d quite enjoy the thought of being in your dreams, but seeing this, I might have to reconsider that sentiment._ Familiar, warm and sandy voice. _What is this place called? Bum crack of the Fade?_ _  
_ Smug prick. And sadly, not wrong, for as his vision cleared and coughs and gagging subsided, he was hit by the smell, sharp, rank decay, and the buzzing of hundreds of thousands of flying insects, some llanding on his wet skin, biting and sucking blood wherever flesh was bared from under the reeking but protecting mud.  
  
At last he’d gathered enough strength and breath to sit up, furiously smacking away at where more and more mosquitoes attempted to land and feed.   
  
_What are you doing in my dream,_ Lea asked dully as he struggled to stand up on the spongy, mossy ground. Though the swamp around them was thick and swarms of mosquitoes were dense, the place shone gold and yellow-green with low, late evening sunlight that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.   
  
_Good question. I’ll give you an answer when I figure out the answer._ Zevran quipped, and Lea noticed that he still looked youthful, without his ink, and his fingers were still black and blue, speckled with dried blood. Those wounds will go bad here in an instant, Lea thought. _  
_ _  
_All solid strips of ground and vegetation seemed to lead into the heart of the wetlands. He grimaced at the squelching in his drenched boots, and though he wished he could cast off the stinking, stained samite robe that weighed him down, it still offered relief from the onslaught of mosquitoes buzzing around his head like a halo.  
  
 _Well then,_ Lea said and shrugged the nasty wet shroud closer. _Let’s see what these sweet dreams of mine are made of._ A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. The crow seemed to have found himself again, and the thought of him by his side eased his discomfort. Could stay a little longer, figure this out together.  
  
Step after step, feet sinking into the soil until crumbling ruins whose architecture Lea didn’t recognise arose from the filth, a marble doorway, gaping at them offering sweet promises of rest and escape from the insects in the darkness of its maw. Lea looked at Zevran, and found to his surprise that the crow had lagged behind with a waning smile on his face and weariness in his gait. He’d forgotten his bloodied feet, though it struck to him as strange that even in his head he’d be wounded as he was in his own dream.   
  
_Come,_ Lea said, motioning towards the door that led into an intact room, devoid of any furnishing, any clutter, appearing as clean, blank as if someone had forgotten to finish it from the inside. But he too felt tired, and the way the crow shambled, once again keeping his aching hands close to his chest, demanded a brief rest. This swamp was never-ending, and wherever he had looked, it was the same stinking, labyrinthian nightmare.  
  
 _It’s a dream, Zevran,_ Lea said as the elf passed him and collapsed with his back against the wall. _  
__  
__It’s your dream, Warden. And…_ Zevran sighed, _what does it say about you when I’m tired tormented and aching in your dream?_ _  
_ _  
_Lea turned half-way to face him. _That’s because you can’t shut up about how much you enjoy pain, crow._ _  
_ __  
Lea frowned and slid down to sit. The dark marble room proved a sanctuary enough, and the thought of wandering back outside into the swamp grew more repulsive by the moment. Finding Zevran and Wynne in their worlds had been easy. His own world, however, led him nowhere.  
  


No, he thought, and rose to his feet again. Time was running out.   
  
_ A little longer,  _ Zevran complained as he watched Lea.   
  
_ I think I’ve run out of my little longers. You stay here. I don’t think I’ve got enough strength in my arms to fish a wet crow out of a muddy pool,  _ Lea said and ambled towards the door. It felt like the very skin of his feet had turned into the damp, soft surface of the swamp.   
  
_ And if you go, I won’t be around to fish you out. Again,  _ Zevran retorted.   
  
Lea shook his head. The crow had sunk into the passive torpor again. Again more content to sit and suffer instead of moving on. The Zevran of the waking world would certainly have an opinion on his dream counterart. The charming talent of calling someone an insufferable little shit in the sweetest of words. Maker, the buzz of little wings coming from the outside dampened his resolve chaining his feet to the smooth, cold floor. How does one get tired in their  _ sleep?  _   
  
He contemplated the figure of young Zevran resting on the floor eyes closed, chest rising and falling in slow and steady breath.   
  
  
_ What should I call you?  _ Lea asked suddenly, unsure of where the question came to him.   
  
The elf’s eyes snapped open, but there it was. It didn’t know. It couldn’t think that in the darkness of the room the light that shone sharp from the doorway would’ve lit up elven eyes like a cat’s. A string of cursewords mixed with awe raced through Leandaros’ mind although not one of them escaped from his lips. It was  _ so stupid.  _   
  
_ Why him?  _ He asked the demon.   
  
It pulled its legs close, but refused to let go of this imperfect form.   
  
_ The ache in your heels. Doubt in your heart. Your grief,  _ it said, though it no longer sounded like Zevran. Instead it spoke in a voice that wasn’t a voice, and it seemed again that each word took years to finish.  _ Forgive me my slowness. I am full and content. Your tower is truly a cornucopia, full of minds all begging for respite.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Niall?  _ Leandaros asked.   
  
_ Easy prey,  _ it answered.  _ I feed on the void in his heart. A shame that good things always end.  _ It stared up at him through Zevran’s eyes.  _ This mundane,  _ it continued, observing its hands with mild interest as if the form were a mere shell,  _ well. A pity that he isn’t a mage. He’d feed himself to me if he could, but wrangling a mundane’s just too much work. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The old mage,  _ it continued slowly.  _ Many, many years of regret, oh, and how easily she fell. But I find her a tad too crowded for my liking. It can’t fit me when I grow fat on her weariness, and I do not like fighting for space.  _ It sighed and smiled coldly.   
  
_ And then there’s you, and I don’t like the taste of you at all. You’re a tiresome soul. Alas, beggars can’t be choosers. Tell me, young mage, do you want to sleep? Put aside the terrible dreams that drive you to drink that vile swill that keeps you awake so? _ _   
_ _   
_ Lea raised an eyebrow.  _ No, not really? _ _   
_ _   
_ It shook his head.  _ I liked your brother so much better. Mundane, but pliable, no ambition, no glory. Wonderful. _ _   
_ _   
_ Leandaros stirred.  _ Excuse me?  _ He said. A stray thought coursed by, wondering why he’s letting this demon question him, corner him, and if it is not feeding on him already.   
  
Its expression looked like a poor attempt at displaying hurt.  _ You’ve forgotten me. All this time, and the young mage doesn’t remember me. Not my riddles, not my gift to you. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ A gift?  _ Lea said. He could sense Its frustration as Lea trod out of the compliant haziness the demon had lulled him into.   
  
_ Your life. But that is a story for another time, and now I tire of you.  _ _   
_ _   
_ Lea’s jaw tightened. He remembered now, the beast in the Raw Fade with its riddles. And now, dangling such knowledge in front of him. Bait, he realised with anger - the secrets of his past right here, but this knowledge would be the last he’d ever obtain if he stayed any longer. He watched it turn away its head and closing its dull eyes. His own eyes widened. If it falls asleep, he will never get out.   
  
Oh, how he’d let down his guard while the demon had lazily woven its web around him tighter and tighter. It had had time, and he’d wasted his. Sloth, a blighted sloth demon ensnared a quick prey. The hare and the tortoise. This was Its domain, governed by Its rules. It had never wanted neither the crow nor the enchanter. They were released because It allowed it. To dampen Lea’s vigilance, to instill indifference from confidence. To feed on his complacency and his exhaustion from the effort of freeing others.   
  
Suddenly, an idea.  _ You like food, do you?  _ Lea asked sharply.  _ I have an offer. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Mm? Offer? You? I want no offers from you, stupid boy,  _ it said languidly.   
  
Lea could feel the gears in his brain labouring to grind faster again, but slowly they picked up the pace.  _ You won’t be feeding on me. But you know how my magic works, do you not? _ _   
_ _   
_ It didn’t answer. Lea wavered. Somewhere in the realm the demon had latched onto him like a leech, sapping him of willpower, clouding his thoughts.    
  
_ Possess me fully, and there will be tens of templars aching to cut us down. You won’t even make it to the shore. Feed on me, and sooner or later you’ll have to ensnare a new meal. So,  _ Lea said, pressing his fingertips together in a triangle, glancing sideways, cursing the failure of swift wit,  _ I offer to you myself.  _ He was aware of how quickly he was talking now, biting the ends off words, mangled their form.   
  
_ How about looking at the world through my eyes, being fed through my magic with no effort from your part at all? Carried around like a king, hm?  _ Were it not for the time running out, he would’ve laughed and wondered, which one of them was really the demon here.   
  
It sat in silence, contemplating, before finally opening his mouth.   
  
_ Your waking world is…. Tiresome. I am content right where I am. What is there in your realm for me to see that is worth the effort?  _ _   
_ _   
_ Leandaros’ patience hung on a thread.  _ I’d say it’s a superior outcome to every present alternative, no? The world is changing. Many will despair. Many will give up, even more will feign ignorance until the bitter end. You will enjoy the complacency of kings and queens unconcerned with what is happening, idleness only deepening the worse everything gets. I will feed you, show you everything you want to see… _ _   
_ _   
_ But escaping the nightmare with a demon on his back with none of its boons would simply not do.   
  
... _ for the small price of lending your power when needed. I am no use to you dead, and the world has a lot to offer through me. I know your hunger, I know your ways. You will find me comfortable  as I lead you. _ _   
_ _   
_ It stared at him, before breaking into a laugh spiced with mockery as it got up to his feet and came close until its face was mere inches from his. Lea had cast his lines sloppily, in a hurry. Will it now take his bait like he had taken its?   
  
Suddenly it grabbed his face, driving its nail, no, claws now, into the flesh of his cheek and the charming smile of his taken shape morphed into something ineffable, yet strangely familiar, and the smooth marble walls around them crumbled and the swamp water poured in, sloshing at his feet, then knees, rising fast to his chest, turning the marble sanctuary into a trap. The last thing he heard before the rot swallowed him was a voice and a word spoken like its speaker did not quite know how, in a voice that belonged to no living being.   
  
_ Agreed. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ What will I call you?  _ Lea shouted before the water filled his mouth and lungs.   
  
_ Accidie. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ \------- _ _   
_ _   
_ Lea lied on the cold floor, head pounding, disoriented and tired to the bone. Though his face ached where it had hit the stone, he preferred it to the prospect of moving. Better than any soft bed. But slowly his machinery stirred as he curled his toes, stretched his fingers. Blood flowed again as he tensed his shoulders and stretched his arms at the sides, although his eyelids still felt too leaden to open. He registered a groan that didn’t belong to him, and scraping of armour and leather on stone, slow and struggling.    
  
He was the last one to wake when he finally rubbed the grain and cobwebs out of his eyes. Zevran stood at the closed door some paces away, listening with his ear against the wood. He’d hit the floor hard by the looks of his face, blood trickling down from where he’d smashed his head. But the elf was alert, idly playing with one of his daggers as he tried to make sense of the faint sounds coming from ahead.   
  
Wynne kneeled over Lea, the air around her smelling like ozone as she steadily brought life back into the body of the Warden who had slumbered for too long. She smiled weakly when she finally saw Lea come to, and ended the spell to turn to the cold body of a mage at the base of the statue of Andraste, where the grotesque demon had wound itself around it like a snake. Without saying a word, Lea watched Wynne check for any signs of life, and failing to find any, remove an aged-looking scroll cylinder from its hand.   
  
_ What is that?  _ Lea asked, still sitting on the floor like a sack of apples, face drawn and puffy.   
  
But Wynne didn’t answer. She removed the lid and reached inside. Her hand emerged, holding a parchment scroll. Very carefully she undid its binding and rolled it open.    
  
_ Why is this here,  _ she said as she let her eyes run across the writing.    
  
_ Oh,  _ she sighed and looked down at the dead mage tenderly and mournfully as she realised why the mage had been guarding it even in his death slumber. Wynne rolled the scroll back together and left the cylinder where it lay, and rose to her feet.   
  
_ Here,  _ she said, extending her arm with the scroll as he approached Leandaros.  _ The Litany of Adralla. I presume the young mage had taken it for safekeeping as soon as he began suspecting. I wish I could thank him for that. _ _   
_ __   
Lea took the scroll from her and rose at last, and read it with bleary eyes. A spell to ward off the puppet strings of blood magic. He recalled that most major Circles had the Litany, for disasters exactly like this. The Grey Warden smiled and closed the scroll, beaming at Wynne before turning to Zevran.    
  
Time to go and bring an end to the ones that had broken the Circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LEVEL UP, SELECT TALENTS TO UPGRADE LEA SURANA!


	8. raw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are winding down. Sort of.

Leandaros rubbed his temples, wishing for the day’s events and their aftermath to stop replaying in his head over and over again. So few of the mages had survived, most survivors apprentices. The Circle of Ferelden had pledged itself to the cause of the Grey Wardens, with aid from the Kinloch templars, but there were too few, far too few.   
  
He took a hasty swig from his ritewine bottle and grimaced at the unholy taste of the potent concoction of stimulants. One thing he knew for certain: he would not sleep tonight. Didn’t want to. And though his body and mind ached for relief, he forced himself awake. He wondered if Accidie was there, watching, waiting until he collapses, so it could finish what it started. He hoped that it saw the benefit in what he had offered. A fear gathered around him like mist, a fear that hadn’t been there before, perhaps because he had not had the time to feel it, but as the evening wound down and the curiosity of companions left behind tapered off, it closed in. What did you do, Leandaros Surana, he asked himself. What the flames did you do.   
  
He slammed the children’s book he had been reading in the inn candlelight shut and rose from the wooden seat. He let his eyes slide along the warm wooden walls of the inn and watched the Senior Enchanter alone at a table, turning a page of the book in front of her, cheeks rosy from the wine she was drinking from a corroded silver goblet. Leliana had tried to offer support, but the enchanter had politely smiled and asked her to scoot.   
  
Zevran was playing cards with Leliana and the innkeep for the better of the night, asking for another match, again, again, spinning stories and laughing a little bit too much. Lea picked up the thin wool blanket from the seat next to him, and tucked the storybook under his arm, and quietly made his way out of the door to get some fresh air and be alone with his thoughts, for the air inside was thick with everybody trying to pretend that everything was alright.   
  
\---   
  
The rowboat was moored on the jetty, but no templar nor boatman was standing watch at it on this late hour. Where the templar had gone, Lea couldn’t have guessed. Snuck off perhaps now that the immediate threat from Kinloch was taken care of. Gone and found himself a nice place to quietly indulge his lyrium habit, maybe.    
  
Lea looked at the horizon on the lake, where mist rolled, quietly creeping closer to the foot of the tower, not unlike a shroud that covered the aftermath of a carnage, silvery from the pale moonlight cast upon it now that the angry storm clouds had given way to the night sky.   
Lake Calenhad’s water was like black glass, and the boat drifted quietly to him as Lea kneeled on the pier, his book and blanket set aside, tired hands pulling the vessel closer by the rope. The boat hit the pier with a quiet, wooden thump, and disturbed the waters, the only sounds in this otherworldly, mute night. Even the inn was quiet, though when Lea glanced at it, the lights were still on. Someone shouted sharply but not angrily, Zevran maybe. He’d been on a losing streak.   
  
It was a task to get into the boat without falling, but once he gained his footing, he took both the blanket and the book, sat down on the bottom of the float, and gently pushed away, sliding slowly until the wet rope rose from the water, grew taut, and stopped the momentum.   
  
Perhaps it was because for the most of his waking life he’d looked out of one of the small windows and seen shimmering surface of the lake with the shore within sight, but not all that close. From some windows, no shore could be seen at all, only water, water and more water. Sometimes the richness of the earth and the forests, the endless shapes and winding ways of inland roads and settlements, the sheer variety, overwhelmed him, but water was familiar. It was safe and offered protection.   
  
With a simple move of the hand, tiny white sparks ignited in the air, dispersing in the dim but luminescent dust like so many stars, first spreading in a cloud, then coalescing until next to him floated a fist-sized sister of the great moon in the sky, surrounded by tiny stars just like she was. With enough light to read without straining, Lea curled into the blanket on the cold bottom of the boat, leaned back his head, opened the storybook, and let the time and space around him go by without him.    
  
Until the boat jerked from its place, and Lea gasped, dropped the book, and turned around to see the source of the sudden disturbance, heart pounding as he peeked over the edge of the vessel and saw Zevran sitting on the pier, lazily pulling the boat back to the shore by the rope. A pang of relief but also anger shot through him.   
  
_ What,  _ he asked tersely when the boat hit one the pier.    
  
But the Crow didn’t answer. He clambered over him like a spider and pushed them away from the pier again before he settled opposite of the Warden and undid the laces on his belt from which a small bottle and two tiny brass chalices hung. Silently he placed them in front of him on the wooden seat of the boat.   
  
_ I figured you could use some of this,  _ he said and motioned at the drinking setup.   
  
_ I don’t want to drink, Zevran,  _ Lea replied darkly.   
  
_ Neither do I,  _ Zevran said simply and leaned back.  _ I also figured that you could use looking at something pretty instead of hiding alone in the mists in the shadow of..  _ He cocked his head at the tower, …. _ that. _ _   
_ _   
_ Lea furrowed his brows and picked up the book, inspecting the corners, pages and back for damage before closing it and putting it on the second seat in front of him.   
_ Is that what you think you are?  _ He jabbed.   
  
_ I can be anything you want me to be, Grey Warden,  _ Zevran said with a lukewarm smile, but it faded at Lea’s expression.   
  
_ Please,  _ Lea muttered and shook his head. ... _ Don’t… say that.  _ He’d nearly forgotten the mimicry of the crow in the Fade, Accidie, now sleeping in the coils of his mind, who’d done just that, and done so convincingly, enough to lull him to carelessness. Something in Lea’s stomach tightened. Not long ago the crow had descended upon with an intent to kill. It made perfect sense for the sloth demon to assume Zevran’s form to disarm him, and now that the crow echoed its words, wielded the same weapons against him, paranoia drove through him like a hot blade.   
  
Zevran studied the Warden’s apprehensive expression and gestured with two open palms.    
  
_ Or not,  _ he said, trying to defuse the situation.  _ For you, I’ll just be dear old me.  _   
  
But the Warden remained tense, albeit he shrugged his shoulders in a poor attempt to look nonchalant. He watched Zevran sigh and pluck the cork off the small liquor bottle, then pour its contents into the tiny goblets.   
  
_ Here,  _ he said, passing one to Leandaros and picking up the other.  _ A drink for trust. _ _   
_ _   
_ Lea contemplated the goblet, eyes bouncing from it to Zevran and back to the drink again. The crow thought Lea feared  _ poison.  _ But in the crow’s ignorance laid his innocence. May be that Accidie and Zevran held the same knives, but only one tried to use them on him. He berated himself for being careless and naive, but after the day’s events there wasn’t enough will in him left to stay alert and untrusting. So he accepted the drink, almost dropping it when his fingers brushed against Zevran’s. With his shell cracked and flesh tender and aching from rot and battery, any fear, any desire caught him off guard hit him intensely.   
  
With his grip now firm around the cup he brought the drink to his nose. Brandy, he identified, and peered at the other elf from under his bushy brows, and him smile.   
  
_ What do we toast for, then?  _ The crow asked jovially, encouraged by the Warden’s gesture of acceptance.   
  
Lea lowered the drink. A toast.   
  
__ The books of the Kinloch libraries,  he finally said absently, eyes unfocused, and without waiting for Zevran to question him or toast with him, he downed the bittersweet drink with one gulp.

  
_ Not only have they been used and abused for so long in the hands of careless students, I’m looking at whoever looked at a broken fortress in a lake and thought: yes! This humid, watery place is where we should store our treasured tomes, the knowledge of centuries, the information that more often than not is the only thing standing between us and those that rather see us dead! But who doesn’t like some mould and furious sneezing and sniffling with their study session. _ _   
_ _   
_ Lea scoffed and shook his head before continuing.  __ And now half of the First Library is ashes. What’s left of the Circle will most likely move to Denerim now. Moving across the country in the middle of a Blight, roads teeming with bandits and other opportunists. Safe to say we’ll lose the rest of the library in no time. I….  Lea paused and looked at the dark tower. 

  
Really wish I could stay and oversee the moving, he said. These imbeciles can’t be trusted as much as to look at one of those tomes, let alone get them to safety across the country.   
  
The Circle is going to leave Kinloch Hold? Zevran asked, and poured himself another drink, only a little. The events of the day did not lend to a desire to let go of the clarity or the awakeness of the mind.   
  
Oh. Lea turned back to Zevran and frowned at his own feet. I would think so? After what happened, only angry demons will roam those halls. It’s not safe for any mage anymore. It wasn’t safe before, I mean, with the Harro--- the Warden slammed his mouth shut. The secrets of the Circle were his to keep, and not be blabbed about to anyone just because they pretended curiosity, so, so enticingly.   
  
Either way, yes. Staying in Kinloch is unlikely. Lea fell silent, and looked at the tower again. I don’t suppose I get to return here again. I’d hoped once this Blight business ended…   
  
He motioned at his empty brass chalice. Another drink wouldn’t hurt. Wouldn’t help either, for to his own surprise he’d discovered how resistant he was to alcohol, but perhaps the bite of this fire water would wash down the bitterness down and fill the black hollow in him where the idea of a return, a home had been just moments ago. Zevran obliged, and filled the chalice to the brim.   
  
I’m surprised, Zevran started as he watched the Warden spilling some brandy on his robes, and grimacing when the drink burned his throat.   
  
I’d expect you to be thrilled to be free. Nobody likes to be cooped up and locked away for the way they were born, with death itself watching for any small trespass, he said.   
  
Most people are not going to set fire to someone’s hair or kill a hundred people outright when they discover that their hands can hold a sword, Lea said. Or do you really think that a mundane should put their trust in someone who, unlike them, can conjure a firestorm out of thin air with their mind? I don’t know, crow. Mages are people too. They break. Except when Jimmy Blue-Eyes in his drunkard’s den loses it, he’ll shank a few fellows before someone puts them down. When a mage breaks, towns burn. Many die.   
  
Of course Lea Surana didn’t want to be at the mercy of a Templar’s sword with no way to escape. No one does. But he remembered what it felt like when fellow apprentices began to develop their powers, and honing them, and what it felt like to watch someone snap-freeze the water around Kinloch hold with simply a concentrated thought. He remembered being cornered and slammed against the wall with invisible magic pinning him up, crushing his chest by boys two years younger than him, just because they could, and because they knew that Lea Surana did not have enough magic to retaliate with. He would’ve suffocated there, his own ribs breaking and puncturing his lungs, had the soft-spoken ser Stefana not happened upon the scene.   
  
Above all he remembered when magic returned to him, and the whispers about him and the catastrophe in some elven clan far away suddenly wasn’t a lie or a fairy tale, and the chaos and fear when disease swept through the tower, and when children were found wandering the tower at night, unresponsive, locked in their waking nightmares, and they thought the entire place with everyone in it was cursed, and when those in the know of what had happened eleven years ago began to eye the reclusive bookish boy with suspicion. And how good it had felt.   
  
No. I don’t blame people at all for being afraid of others who could be just as cruel and weak as them, but against whom they have no defense but a templar, Lea said simply, breaking away from his reverie.   
  
And how often does that happen? Once a decade maybe a story goes around that a mage was discovered after a catastrophe. And even then, other stories tell of the abuse that drove the child to react. Some sort of ice had crept into the assassin’s otherwise warm timbre, and Lea noticed that he wasn’t smiling anymore. Do you think it justified, rounding up people on the pain of death for their potential instead of their actions?    
  
Lea knew then, that he had touched a nerve.    
  
And when, Lea began, voice suddenly thin but filled with poison, was the last time you heard stories of such a disaster? Was it in Antiva? I’ve read that a whole clan of elves suddenly disappeared, and what remains of their haunt is feared more than it was when the clan still roamed? Lea smiled.   
  
Near two decades ago. One disaster in two decades? Nowhere near enough to warrant such draconian measures against mages, Zevran replied, and looked Leandaros in the eye. But that, he pointed at the looming silhouette of the Kinloch hold, is what happens when you punch down long enough. Or was it not a handful of unhappy mages sick of imprisonment and a fear of a blade on their neck that caused this destruction?    
  
Leandaros felt the edges of this patience fraying. An assassin bragging about the death he rains on others like it was divine poetry any other day suddenly becoming a patronising, bleeding heart. What ever it was, pity or some misguided attempt at justice, he didn’t know who Lea was. What he could really do. He looked at him and saw a skinny young man in too-big robes who hexed and cursed with invisible, slow magic. He saw benevolent Wynne protecting and healing her wards, and Morrigan, for her snake tongue, held herself back. This outsider telling him what he is, what’s good for him? What an insult. Pity from the ignorant. This crow did not think the Warden dangerous at all. Thoughts ground in Lea’s brain, any coherence overtaken by fire and flood. It always happened so suddenly, an inexorable, blinding anger washing over him. Sick of people who looked at him and saw anything but a threat.    
  
I can’t believe it. You of all people preaching about right or wrong, Lea said, staring daggers at the crow.   
  
I’m an Antivan Crow, not a Chantry clerk, true, Zevran replied, matching Leandaros’ cold tone.  But when something is so fundamentally wrong, I will protest. No one deserves to be shoved in a cage, left bereft of any choice or freedom for the circumstances of their birth. Not even you. He leaned back, away from the mage, but didn’t avert his challenging gaze. Lea had assumed the man to be convictionless. A flag in the wind. It was both amusing and infuriating for him to witness an assassin lecture him on the sanctity of mage lives. Fuck you, crow, he thought, and stood up suddenly, the boat rocking dangerously, the tiny moon spell dispersing in the wind of his robes into thousands of tiny stars like dust.   
  
Don’t you presume to tell me what I deserve or don’t, he hissed and pointed his finger at Zevran, eyes full of fury behind the drapes of his hair.   
  
I lived the circle, you didn’t. I know the life you’re taking a shit on, you don’t, and I say that had I not been taken from some fucking swamp in the blasted Antiva, I would not be here, I would not know what I know today, and I would not be here, a Grey Warden, standing between you and the Blight, and regardless of what my thoughts are on the Circle of Magi, they will always be more valid than yours or any mundane’s. Keep this up, and you’ll see just why you and everyone else should be rightfully afraid of us. He let his hand fall on his side, and carefully sat back down lest he lose his balance and fall and make a joke out of himself.   
  
_ And you could be dead from the drink I poured you.  _ Zevran leaned forward, face frozen in some ineffable expression, maybe hostile, maybe amused. Lea Surana felt uneasy all of a sudden.   
  
_ I saw you hesitate,  _ Zevran continued. _ but you drank anyway. You trusted me because you were tired and miserable and I see the way you look at me. Oh, yes, I know,  _ he said and chuckled bitterly. _   
_ _   
_ __ Anybody can kill anybody. Anybody can kill everybody, if they’re clever enough. Should we round everyone up then, and lock them away for a what-if? 

_Mages do think themselves more special than us mundanes, I’ve noticed. You’re not. You bleed, you’ll succumb to disease and poison. You get angry and lose control. You can be deceived. You fall in love. Things like the Circles of Magi only affirm your delusions. So, my dear Warden, I listen to you and think to myself: are you really this disconnected with reality, or are you just very afraid that you’ll never amount to anything, that you’ll always be just like the rest of us._  
  
Lea’s mouth fell open, then he lurched forward on all fours like some vicious, feral animal, face inches from the other elf’s, sharp little teeth bared in a snarl.  
  
_I will never be like the rest of you._ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_At last his anger boiled over, leaving behind a thrumming headache. It was as if any resolve had been drained of him. Slowly he returned to the nose of the boat and awkwardly, without even looking at the assassin, fished the slimy, wet rope out of the water and struggled to pull them back to the shore, hands and shoulders still shaking from the adrenaline crash. The crow behind him didn’t say a word.  
  
Avoiding looking behind him, he climbed out of the boat, leaving the storybook and the blanket behind. He felt strangely scared of the expression he might find on Zevran’s face, for the silence itself was already ominous.  
  
 _Come tomorrow, I want you gone,_ Lea said, as he got up to stand on the pier, back turned at the lake.  
  
No answer. His stomach sank. Tears welled up in his eyes. They always did after intense anger, he was an angry crier and it was his shame. With eyes wide and fixed on the moonlit ground in front of him, he began to walk away, but he could only manage a few steps before a voice rang out from the boat.  
  
 _But I cannot. I am oathbound to you, am I not? And I keep my oaths. Crow’s honour._ The tone of Zevran’s voice was now lighter.  
  
Lea ground his teeth, but still didn’t dare to look at the elf.   
  
_Well,_ Lea said. _I release from your oath._ _  
_ _  
_ _And what,_ Zevran shouted back, _ten years from now I find you on my doorstep to exact your vengeance on me? My oath is verbal, so is your releasing of me. Who’s to say you won’t come up with a loophole? We never shook on it! Never wrote it down…_ _  
_ _  
_Lea suppressed a groan and slowly turned around, glaring at the indignant elf draped over the edge of the rowboat, fingers lazily treading water, the expression on Zevran’s face pensive, quizzical.  
  
 _Then let me give you my oath,_ Lea snarled, annoyed now, but the reservoir of his anger was empty, _I shan’t ever come after you with dubious claims of you not holding up your oath to me._ _  
_ _  
_ _And there it is,_ the crow now said cheerfully. _You’re oathbound to me! We’ll never be free of each other._ _  
_ _  
_And the gold-haired, instigating shit pushed away from the edge of the boat and disappeared from Lea’s sight as he lied down in the bottom of the vessel, and laughed.  
  
 _No darkspawn or common blade can kill you, Warden,_ Lea heard from the waters of lake Calenhad as he rushed across the slick grass to the inn, stumbling on the hems of his robes ungracefully. _Your temper will be your undoing._ _  
_ __  
  


  
  
  
_ \------- _ _   
_ _   
_ Warden Surana hadn’t really slept at all. In and out of consciousness, one leg in the Waking World, the other in the Fade where Accidie and its kind reigned. He’d given up resting an hour before the sunrise, though the innkeeper could already be heard below, firing up the ovens, and smells from the kitchen wafted up the stairs and lingered around the roof beams. It’d be several more hours before the Templars would arrive on the shore with the remaining mages, away from the danger of Kinloch hold. Lea’s thoughts turned to the young apprentices and the remaining mages who’d not yet become Enchanters. What would they feel when they step out of the stone and under the vast sky? Would the children be thrilled, or scared, or a little bit of both upon remembering how vast and wide and boundless the world outside the holdfast was?   
  
The crew would be staying put for another day as Leandaros, Senior Enchanter Wynne and Alistair would try to lay down the basic plans on what happens next. Irving and Greagoir will argue as they always did. Even the remaining Templars of Kinloch hold would marvel at the sky, for they went where the mages went, and some hadn’t been out of Kinloch hold for many years now. It was going to be a long way, Lea thought, when he quietly made his way down the stairs and nodded good morning to the innkeep who was tending to a black brew of tea.   
  
The innkeep motioned at the kettle with a question in his eyes, and Lea nodded again. This was the same tea brew that was standard at the breakfast table in the Circle, and its smell alone was comforting in familiarity.   
  
He picked up the fresh brew once it was done and poured out, and headed out the inn door, sitting down on the wood porch. The entire world was still enveloped in fog, though the sky was blooming orange and yellow on the horizon. Lea didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard the door open and close behind him, and light steps that followed. _   
_ _   
_ _ You’re still here,  _ Lea said idly, cupping his drink, eyes heavy, deep blue circles under them, tell-tale signs of exhaustion that still remained. _   
_ _   
_ _ Well, history is being made in Ferelden,  _ Zevran answered and settled down beside the Warden swiftly and gracefully. _   
_ _   
_ _ What a shame would it be for me to not be a part of it,  _ he continued jovially. _ Besides, someone’s got to keep your temper in check lest the world be overrun with Blight because of the two surviving Grey Wardens in Ferelden, one’s a coward and the other one popped a vein.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ You’re a real fucker, you know that?  _ Lea said, lazily peppering his words with an unsure chuckle, and put down his tea beside him. _   
_ _   
_ _ In so many ways, yes, or so I’ve been told,  _ Zevran replied casually and took a generous gulp of his warm, fragrant tiva drink - something that the crow had brought along with him from overseas. _   
_ _   
_ Lea fidgeted with the ends of his hair, tying them into little knots and undoing them again. His own morning tea remained untouched. _   
_ _ I uh….. I apologise for my little tantrum last night,  _ he finally said. _ Kinloch might’ve been a prison in its way but it’s all I know. It’s strange knowing all I’ve got left is the unknown. The world is too big. I miss the walls and the water, and knowing where things belong, and this I can’t help.  _ He hoped he’d sounded confident. If Kinloch truly had been a prison, it might’ve protected the world from him, but also shielded him from the world. _   
_ _   
_ _ You don’t need to tell me about getting attached to your golden cage. I am quite familiar with the fear of freedom, and the responsibility that comes with it. You’ll get used to it,  _ Zevran said with a light smile. _   
_ _   
_ Lea scoffed and shook his head. Not this again. He felt the familiar compulsion to vomit out his words, to justify and defy, and just like the night before, it was near impossible to block the flood. _   
_ _   
_ _ Your family and your home didn’t go up in flames. It’s not gone for good. You decided to leave, I was made to. Eleven years I didn’t set my foot on that shore, and suddenly I was made to go. To battle, at Ostagar. What did they think I was going to do? Recite the history and line of Arls of Redcliffe until the Darkspawn horde keeled over from boredom?  _ Lea leaned his head in his hands and rubbed his temples. Echoes of last night’s headache still bounced back from the confines of his skull.   
  
Zevran warmed his hands around the hot clay mug and turned to look at the Warden, who stared straight ahead, mouth tight.   
  
_ The ship I crossed the Waking Sea with had a medicine man,  _ Zevran began calmly. Lea caught himself thinking that this was the voice of a hazy morning sun _. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Couldn’t fight at all,  _ the crow continued. __ Held his rapier like it was a club. But had he not been on board with his concoctions and his threads and needles and big head full of knowledge, half of the crew would’ve perished in the aftermath of the bloodshed when a small raider vessel hit our cumbersome galleon out of nowhere.   
  
Zevran finished his tiva drink, and pushed up from the table and headed back inside, leaving Lea on the porch to anxiously puff on his pipe in the silver-gold fog that had yet to lift from the lake and its shores.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hate writing dialogue, but this end chapter of the WotW-WfH segment is very dialogue-heavy. It’s a mess, but it sheds harsh and unflattering light on what sort of person Lea Surana is, what drives him and what rages inside of him.
> 
> Consider this unsure stumbling through a multi chapter fic my personal success, considering that this is the first multi-chapter ANYTHING I've ever written, and the whole segment is longer than any other work I've got. Amateur? sure. But it's mine. I could do it. Wow.

**Author's Note:**

> The Warden fell in love the moment he laid his eyes on the assassin, but this is where the seed truly took to the soil.


End file.
